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project: Tap

About 8 weeks ago, I was asked by the team at Wattpad if I would be interested in leading some creative experimentation on a futuristic storytelling product called Tap. The explorations existed at an intersection I'm deeply passionate about; filmmaking and new technology.

The day all of this came up my wife Sachi and I were about to sign a lease in San Francisco, but there are not many products like Tap so we decided to adjust our plans so I could work on this.

The focus of my experimentation with Tap can be distilled into a few questions. This is what we decided I needed to figure out:

Expanding on Tap's vision, how could Tap evolve over time to be the most cutting edge story experience in the space?

What is the project or set of projects that prove that vision?

Is there a compelling convergence of filmmaking and product processes? What are they? How could they function? Why?

Project details:

I started by forming a hypothesis on the future of Tap. This process involved deep research and study of:

the product

the existing vision

the users

the market

new technologies

historical patterns of technology use and innovation

historical human behaviour

and my own predictions about the future.

Some of this research was new and much of it came out of subjects I have been studying over the past 12~ months. My hypotheses and vision for this space started to become much stronger over time.

I believe we are about to experience (and are experiencing) fundamental shifts in how we consume and create entertainment (and inevitably all information). Specifically in how these creative experiences are packaged and delivered to audiences.

In order to further explore this vision and hypotheses, we decided to realize a project called 'HIDE Remastered'. The project involved taking the most successful horror story on Tap and reworking it on almost every level in order to make it a more thrilling, realistic and immersive experience.

This collaboration was a huge success in user testing. Each user would become immediately immersed in the story. In every case, users preferred this new experience over the previous one. The project pushed against every aspect of traditional filmmaking and product creation processess, ultimately yielding new ways of thinking about Tap.

You can watch a simple trailer below, but this is an interactive and cutting edge experience that should be experienced on your phone using Tap.